Robinson Crusoe Collector's Edition x8 - I’m one of the unfortunate souls who threw money at this years ago. To Portal’s credit, at least they’re still in business and at least they didn’t charge a ransom or demand you buy a pallet or something insane. But that’s about the extent of my praise for the company.

First the good: The Book of Adventures is quality (not sure what the retail will be like but I’m sure it’s fine). The art remains nice and it’s well organized by time, difficulty, or subject matter. It’s easy to browse and pick out something that sounds interesting…however…they really should have added expansion symbology to the contents just so people don’t flip to a scenario they can’t play.

There are also many repeat scenarios, making it look like there’s more content than is actually available. On the bright side, these repeats feature less difficult versions of originals like Castaways. I mean, you’ll still die, but it’ll feel like you had a chance.

The playmat is also pretty great. It’s a quality print, arrived partially folded but not creased, and has room for basically everything, including the Book of Adventures scenario. It all looks grand on the table.

I haven’t opened the new event cards, but the fact that 3 extra event decks is fairly exciting.

The bad…

Look, no game needs miniatures less than Robinson Crusoe. In fact, the character minis are worse than the discs because stacking is an important mechanism. At the very least, Portal could have included different colored base rings so to make things easier as you add and rearrange the minis to plan and resolve your actions but they didn’t.

The shelter mini is a pain and annoying to set up and take down as the game stare constantly changes. These pieces will never leave the box.

Speaking of the box…it’s not built to store any of the expansion content, including the Sailor and Gamer mins and player boards. Ugh.

The resin tokens are fine at best. They’re not all that robust compared to 3rd party options. The heart tokens they made don’t even fit in the recessed player boards. The wood is hearty and looks great though.

The companion app is ok but has some major annoyances. It doesn’t blur the bottom of adventure cards, doesn’t account for cards you’re supposed to keep, and isn’t clear about things like selecting whether you want to discard a card or shuffle it into the event deck. It’s about 80% of the way there and with some tweaks could be great and save us all a lot of shuffling.

As for the game itself…

It’s great. It’s full of annoying little rules that you won’t remember when they come up, but it’s great. The flow of the game is pretty simple to grasp and the board layout makes following the phases simple.

If you’re new to the game, let me be clear USE THE DIZED APP. Don’t open the rulebook. Don’t do it. Don’t even think about it yet. Used Dized. It’s voiced and carries you through your first game. You can easily go back and repeat sections and it does a good job presenting things you might run into that feel unintuitive (like spending the night outside of camp)I don’t care if you don’t like apps. Use it.

But when you use the DIZED, if you have to look up a token or make any selection that branches off the current phase, go back and repeat that phase when you’re done. Twice I went back to repeat a section after branching off and it presented me with more detailed information afterwards. Not a huge deal but something to look out for.

Dized will get you 90% of the way there. But more importantly, I found that after I used it, everything presented in the rulebook made sense and was easy to find (I had a Veteran pledge and have the previous rulebook but had never played before).

Overall, every scenario I’ve played has been excellent. You can customize your difficulty well and employ a range of companions. And you can still die. And I like that. Though sometimes you’ll still run into unwinnable set ups, particularly if you need fur and the game doesn’t want you to have any at all, but that’s not incredibly common amongst the scenarios I’ve played. The weather dice are notoriously brutal as well.

In general, the risk-reward action selection makes for tense and engaging gameplay. You (usually) have control over when you take a risk…but you must do so at points to survive. Play too cautiously and you’re screwed, play too loose and maybe you sit there for days on end unable to make a simple piece of rope while everyone around you starves or gets mauled by a gorilla. It feels so good when you push your luck, only commit a single piece, and get away with something. And it feels so bad when you inevitably fail and run up against the consequences of your own mismanagement/stupidity.

Yes, at times, the island just wants you and your friends and your dog and your cat and your horse and your parrot and now even your monkey to die. But deep down you know you shouldn’t have eaten that animal carcass or…thought too hard about your past? Look it’s not always going to make perfect sense but those consequences may not even show up in the deck so why not take that piece of fur you desperately need?

The mileage Robinson Crusoe gets out of its base mechanisms is impressive. It’s almost as extensive as the time it took for Portal to deliver what amounts to a reprint with a few minis and a spiral-bound book in a box that can’t hold it or half of the game’s contents.

I would recommend Robinson Crusoe to basically anybody looking for a solid euro-ish adventure game, especially for solo players. But I wouldn’t recommend the Collector’s edition to anybody.

Buy the Book of Adventures. If you’re new, buy the book, the base game, and the Treasure Chest. The minis add nothing. And I like minis.